Thank Labor Unions.

[Wyatt earp]

Detriot, Pittsburgh, overpriced and sub-standard American made products, progressivism....yeah thanks.

Overpriced? Sub-standard?

Capitalism! Take the money and run!

Not capitalism, unions.

Unions set the prices? Unions are in charge of Quality Assurance?

Explain.

It adds around $1,000 to a price of a car...

Ingram: Unions are past their prime


2008, the Associated Press reported that "the average United Auto Workers member makes $29.78 per hour at GM, while Toyota pays its (U.S.) workers (most of whom are nonunion) about $30 per hour. However, when total benefits (including pensions and health care for workers, retirees and their spouses) is factored in, GM's total hourly labor costs is about $69, while Toyota's is about $48."

 

[OnePercenter]

New work trucks cost me around 40k


THANKS UNIONS!

That's because you aren't bidding out your trucks.

Trucks and SUV's have the highest profit margin. For instance, my price for a 2017 F450 Premium is $55K. MSRP is $80K.

 

[Mr Natural]

It adds around $1,000 to a price of a car...

Oh man, just think how cheap a new car could be if they didn't have to pay the workers at all just like back in the glory days of the Old South.

 

[Wyatt earp]

It adds around $1,000 to a price of a car...

Oh man, just think how cheap a new car could be if they didn't have to pay the workers at all just like back in the glory days of the Old South.

You notice Toyota's workers were paid more?


I still want to know what they are going to do in 2018 when obama tax adds 48% to their Cadillac health care plans?

Do they drop them? If that was the case what's the point in being in a Union, obama really screwed over one of the democrats biggest donors

 

[BluesLegend]

Unions were a good thing until they were corrupted by politicians. Politicians turned unions into corrupted campaign cash slush funds and blocks of votes they could purchase.

After the politicians destroyed the private sector unions by sucking them dry they organized government employees into unions creating a corrupted source of money a mob boss would drool over. The politicians raise taxes on the people, give the money to government unions, which kick back part of the money ensuring the politician wins re-election. A conflict of interest and monopoly the law would never allow in the private sector.

This is why incumbents win over 90% of the elections and end up serving life terms in the House and Senate, they have so rigged elections that its nearly impossible to unseat these bastards.

 

[Al Azar]

Wow. If excessive labor costs are causing problems at the companies, you have to wonder why management agrees to pay at that level. Is that what the market demands? Or, in the companies the writer refers to, the unions just present their new wage scale to the company and the owners meekly sign it, with "Thank you, Sir"?

 

[PredFan]

Unions cause the price to climb to a point where companies can't be competitive unless they reduce cost of manufacture, thus leading to a less well-made product.

I asked you to explain this, not re-state it.

How do unions cause the price to climb, and then make the decision to reduce quality?

What a dumbass you are. Read much moron?

 

[PredFan]

Detriot, Pittsburgh, overpriced and sub-standard American made products, progressivism....yeah thanks.

Overpriced? Sub-standard?

Capitalism! Take the money and run!

Not capitalism, unions.

Unions set the prices? Unions are in charge of Quality Assurance?

Explain.

It adds around $1,000 to a price of a car...

Ingram: Unions are past their prime


2008, the Associated Press reported that "the average United Auto Workers member makes $29.78 per hour at GM, while Toyota pays its (U.S.) workers (most of whom are nonunion) about $30 per hour. However, when total benefits (including pensions and health care for workers, retirees and their spouses) is factored in, GM's total hourly labor costs is about $69, while Toyota's is about $48."

He will need you to explain that to him. He's not good at all that reading stuff apparently.

 

[Al Azar]

What a dumbass you are. Read much moron?

Didn't take you long to realize you had no ammo. I really didn't expect you to give up so soon and start hurling insults. You had a couple of arguments that you could make first, which I would shoot down one by one. Maybe you thought far enough ahead to realize you couldn't support what you'd posted?

It's time to reflect on the fact you have no basis for your feelings about organized labor in America.

 

[PredFan]

What a dumbass you are. Read much moron?

Didn't take you long to realize you had no ammo. I really didn't expect you to give up so soon and start hurling insults. You had a couple of arguments that you could make first, which I would shoot down one by one. Maybe you thought far enough ahead to realize you couldn't support what you'd posted?

It's time to reflect on the fact you have no basis for your feelings about organized labor in America.

Well, I answered the question but apparently you can't read. I don't know how to make it any simpler for you.

 

[Wyatt earp]

Wow. If excessive labor costs are causing problems at the companies, you have to wonder why management agrees to pay at that level. Is that what the market demands? Or, in the companies the writer refers to, the unions just present their new wage scale to the company and the owners meekly sign it, with "Thank you, Sir"?

You really are that clueless about american unions...

 

[PredFan]

Wow. If excessive labor costs are causing problems at the companies, you have to wonder why management agrees to pay at that level. Is that what the market demands? Or, in the companies the writer refers to, the unions just present their new wage scale to the company and the owners meekly sign it, with "Thank you, Sir"?

You really are that clueless about american unions...

He could be clueless or simply lying. Lefties like to lie a lot.

 

[Al Azar]

What a dumbass you are. Read much moron?

Didn't take you long to realize you had no ammo. I really didn't expect you to give up so soon and start hurling insults. You had a couple of arguments that you could make first, which I would shoot down one by one. Maybe you thought far enough ahead to realize you couldn't support what you'd posted?

It's time to reflect on the fact you have no basis for your feelings about organized labor in America.

Well, I answered the question but apparently you can't read. I don't know how to make it any simpler for you.

You didn't answer it at all.

You claimed that "overpriced and sub-standard American made products" are to be blamed on unions. I asked you to explain that, and you merely restated it: "Unions cause the price to climb to a point where companies can't be competitive unless they reduce cost of manufacture, thus leading to a less well-made product."

That doesn't explain anything, it simply restates your original, so far unsupported, assertion that unions are to blame.

Pressed further, you respond with a weak "Here, read this". That shows only that you've never really given your position much thought and are unable to put together an answer to a rather simple question about it.

I'm asking you, for the third time, to explain how unions are to blame for management decisions. You seem to feel very strongly about this, so it should be a piece of cake for you, if you can support those reasons better than you've done so far.

 

[Wyatt earp]

Wow. If excessive labor costs are causing problems at the companies, you have to wonder why management agrees to pay at that level. Is that what the market demands? Or, in the companies the writer refers to, the unions just present their new wage scale to the company and the owners meekly sign it, with "Thank you, Sir"?

You really are that clueless about american unions...

He could be clueless or simply lying. Lefties like to lie a lot.

I hope he is clueless and not trying to spread propaganda, we don't need another Matthew, Rderp or chief sitting full of it.

 

[Al Azar]

Gee. Direct questions really throw you guys into a tizzy.

And those bumper stickers seemed to say it all!

 

[PredFan]

What a dumbass you are. Read much moron?

Didn't take you long to realize you had no ammo. I really didn't expect you to give up so soon and start hurling insults. You had a couple of arguments that you could make first, which I would shoot down one by one. Maybe you thought far enough ahead to realize you couldn't support what you'd posted?

It's time to reflect on the fact you have no basis for your feelings about organized labor in America.

Well, I answered the question but apparently you can't read. I don't know how to make it any simpler for you.

You didn't answer it at all.

You claimed that "overpriced and sub-standard American made products" are to be blamed on unions. I asked you to explain that, and you merely restated it: "Unions cause the price to climb to a point where companies can't be competitive unless they reduce cost of manufacture, thus leading to a less well-made product."

That doesn't explain anything, it simply restates your original, so far unsupported, assertion that unions are to blame.

Pressed further, you respond with a weak "Here, read this". That shows only that you've never really given your position much thought and are unable to put together an answer to a rather simple question about it.

I'm asking you, for the third time, to explain how unions are to blame for management decisions. You seem to feel very strongly about this, so it should be a piece of cake for you, if you can support those reasons better than you've done so far.

I just don't know how to dumb it down any further for you. I told you everything you need to know the answer. Do I have to teach you economics, remedial math, and logic as well? If you can't understand, I can't help you.

 

[Al Azar]

Translation: I don't know how. It's just what I've been told and I don't question it. I have my beliefs and they're not subject to critical review.

 

[Windship]

Thank a union for Detroit

View attachment 87469

You like in a dream world of sound bites and bumper stickers. Foreign competition killed detroit moron.

 

[Windship]

I've never been in a union.

But I have benefited from their being in place.

All workers have. Unions established the standards all enjoyed.

Little by little workers are losing ground as they turn their backs on unions, the only advocate workers have in the workplace. It's time they woke up to that fact.

Big business is more powerful than any one individual. It is not more powerful than workers united as a group. Unions level the playing field and assure that everyone receives fair treatment and compensation.

Never been part of a union and haven't lost ground yet.

Anyone relying on a union to do his/her bidding isn't worth hiring. They're saying my skills aren't good enough to speak for me.

Ill never get used to the remarkably ignorant people here.
Its is the companies duty as a capitalistic entity to give as little as possible to the workers while working them as hard as they possibly can.
The unions built the middle class hense the strong economy we had to 1970. You dont want a healthy economy?

 

[Windship]

Mismanagement by Big Auto destroyed Detroit. Focusing on the short term is no way to run a business.

Greed. Greed and unfettered capitalism killed detroit and dont look now but it wasnt just detroit. Do you suggest that all of bisness' that failed went out because of mismanagement? And how do you explain the prosperity for all when unions were common? Her dummy....learn:


The city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy protection on July 18 — the largest municipal bankruptcy filing in U.S. history. Detroit, of course, is synonymous with the auto industry, which has been rebounding recently. So why is Detroit struggling? To find out, let’s dispel some myths about the city’s past and present.

1. The auto industry is back, so Detroit should be, too.

Detroit (the city) and Detroit (the auto industry) have been on disparate paths since the mid-20th century, when carmakers began building plants in other parts of the country. Later, the carmakers joined the rush to globalize. My 2010 Ford Fusion, for example, was made in Hermosillo, Mexico.Manufacturers started doing this to assemble cars closer to regional markets and to get away from the powerful United Auto Workers (UAW) union in Michigan.

These days, only a handful of Detroit residents work in the auto industry. Once home to about a dozen car factories, the city now has only two auto plants. When car companies announce that they’re hiring, the jobs are often elsewhere. For example, when Ford said in 2011that it would add 4,000 hourly workers, nearly half of those new jobs were in Louisville. The health of the auto industry now has little bearing on the daily lives of Detroiters, 16 percent of whom are unemployed.




2. Unions destroyed the auto industry — and Detroit.

At its peak in the 1960s and 1970s, the UAW was a powerful force in labor and national politics, and it continues to be a strong advocate for its members. This is the function of a union. Or a trade association. Or a chamber of commerce. Unions, and the UAW in particular, helped create the American middle class by elevating assembly-line work into steady, well-paying employment that provided economic stability. Without unions, Detroit would not have risen to the heights it did.

The real culprit in the city’s decline has been federal policies that put corporate health ahead of community health, such as free-trade agreements that sacrifice U.S. jobs for foreign trade. President Bill Clinton’s NAFTA treaty is particularly reviled among auto workers. Such agreements have made it easier for car companies and others to leave their communities for lower labor costs elsewhere.

Yet scapegoating corporate leaders shifts responsibility from where it belongs: on us. We’ve voted for leaders who endorse policies that require corporate brass to make decisions based on their responsibility to stockholders. Blaming corporations for maximizing profits is like blaming a dog for barking. If we want businesses to behave differently, we need to change our laws and our expectations.



3. The city began declining after the 1967 riot.

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Myths of 2013

View Photos
Fact or fiction? A collection from Outlook’s popular Five Myths series.
Those five bloody days in July 1967, which began with a police raid on an illegal after-hours bar, resulted in 43 people killed and more than 1,100 injured. The riot has been seared into Detroiters’ collective memory. Yet it was a symptom, not the cause, of one of the city’s ills: pervasive racial tension, particularly between an aggressive and nearly all-white police force and black residents. It’s easy to forget that Detroit had rioted for the same reason in 1943.

The 1967 riot only abetted radical changes that were already underway. Detroit’s population had been in flux since the 1950s, when white flight accelerated and Southern blacks came in increasing numbers. In the 1960s, as the city’s population dropped by more than 9 percent, the black population increased by 37 percent, partially offsetting the exodus of some 385,000 whites.

The lasting effects of the riot were an exodus of small businesses and a sense among white Detroiters and suburbanites that the city could not be saved. Former mayor Coleman Young estimated in his autobiography, “Hard Stuff,” that Detroit lost 110,000 jobs in the decade after the riot, a time that included the 1973 Arab oil embargo, which hurt the auto industry. But by the time the burning began, the city had already been draining itself.

Now Detroit has 700,000 people, more than the District, but spread over 140 square miles — bigger than Manhattan, Boston and San Francisco combined. The average police response time is about 58 minutes, and 40 percent of the streetlights are broken.



4. Public pensions sunk the city’s budget.

Detroit’s major financial problem is that its shrinking tax base has meant years of declining revenue. Remember, the city has lost more than 1 million residents since its population peaked in the 1950s. Those who blame pensions confuse cause and effect — like blaming a personal bankruptcy on a pesky car loan after one’s salary was cut in half. The difference, of course, is that getting rid of a car you can no longer afford isn’t the same as reneging on a promise to 21,000 retirees.

Pensions chew up so much of Detroit’s budget because policymakers didn’t prioritize meeting pension obligations when times were flush, as the Detroit Free Press pointed out before the bankruptcy filing. “Decades of mismanagement and bad practices, coupled with catastrophic market declines, have altered the pensions from a reliable way to assure retirees’ futures into a massive financial burden,” the paper noted in an editorial, adding that Detroit retirees get about $1,600 a month. Slashing those benefits now would exacerbate the city’s problems, since many retired city workers still live there.

And, although Detroit has had its share of scandals and political corruption — former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick faces a lengthy prison sentence after his conviction this year for bribery and extortion — those didn’t cause its financial problems, either. The city’s decline was born of a half-century of corporate decisions to decentralize production, a lack of industrial and economic diversity, regional policies that encouraged exurban expansion, racial friction and globalization.



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5. Bankruptcy will save Detroit.

Bankruptcy might rescue the city’s budget, but it will not fix any of the underlying problems: overwhelming private disinvestment, failed institutions, joblessness, high poverty and low education rates, and increasing isolation of residents, particularly the elderly. While new investments in downtown and midtown are to be lauded, those only affect a small slice of the city. And although community gardens could form a foundation for community action — it’s a small step from neighbors working together in empty lots to working together on bigger issues — suggestions that Detroit should turn to farming on its vacant land or concentrate residents in certain neighborhoods to reduce the cost of services would do little to alter the city’s fabric.

It has taken more than a half-century for Detroit to fall this low, and the Motor City will take a long time to right itself. There are no quick fixes for its deep-rooted, systemic problems. Sharing public services with the suburbs, focusing on small neighborhood-by-neighborhood improvements instead of blockbuster redevelopment projects and improving public schools would be a good start. And all this, of course, will take patience.